ABOUT THE PORTING KIT

Welcome to the Porting Kit information page!

What is the Porting Kit?

Porting Kit is an application which ports Windows games so you can play it on your Mac without needing Windows.
Sound pretty cool, and it sure is. But how does it work, is it free and legal? Well, those questions and more I
will try to answer on this page.

Porting Kit uses Wineskin wrappers
to create its ports. Wineskin mainly use the free open-source code Wine.
Wine is a piece of software that in difficult words is a “compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications
on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows
logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating
the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into
your desktop.” So its not an Windows emulator but it makes it possible to run Windows software on your Mac.

In combination with the free Wineskin (an graphical shell around Wine), Porting Kit will fulfill your game wishes
on your Mac. Wine is under constant development and every 2 weeks Wine gets a new release with updated code which
adds more features and fixes problems in earlier versions. This makes it possible to update existing ports in the
Porting Kit for better performance and bug fixes, and new games which didn’t work before.

How does Porting Kit works?

The idea behind Porting Kit is quite simple. The Porting Kit contains procedures which creates a Wrapper and
configures and optimizes it this way, that the specific game you chose in the database works. The basic process
in a wrapper creation is done through the following steps:

First Porting Kit looks in the WSI file what engine is needed, downloads it and creates the wrapper;

Then it applies the winetricks and make the adjustments that are needed for the game;

Then depending on the game version (free full game/Wrapper), it downloads the game or searches for a setup
file in your Downloads folder;

Then the Porting Kit will run the setup file and install the Windows game into the Wrapper;

At the end of the installation, the Porting Kit finishes the creation progress and will say the game is ready
to play in your "Library –> Local Tab" in Porting Kit.

Do the Porting Kit game ports always work on all Mac’s?

No, this depends on the games itself and on the graphical cards of your Mac. For example: big advanced FPS will in
some cases not work on low-end Intel Graphics Macs, but may work on better performing Macs with an Nvidia GFX card.
Intel Graphics cards in general are quite poor performing graphical cards, so don’t expect miracles for big games on
those cards. But even on high end Mac’s the performance might not be matched to when you play it on Windows. In those
cases, lower resolutions and less details settings are required to play the game decently, so always check the rankings
(Number of Stars) mentioned on the game pages. But also rank yourself, since this gives as much realistic view how the
specific game works on different graphical cards. We cannot guarantee anything then mentioning how it works on our
system. So use the Porting Kit on your own risk.

Game versions...

A very important subject are the game versions used in the Porting Kit. Those game versions are tested and known
to work on our side. But more important, other game versions in most cases have other paths to the start executable of
the game or need some extra adjustments in the Wrapper to make the specific installer/download client work. We will
try to make the choice of version as diverse as possible.

GOG.com games: This
game version is used the most, one because it’s one of out main game sponsors, and because the games don’t contain DRM
(copy protection), which makes the game far more easy to run then games with it. Besides that, GOG.com is not dependent
on game clients and can be played offline, this comparing with Steam/Origin/Uplay, which requires in most cases to have
an internet connection. That’s why our main advise is to use the GOG.com version when available;

Gamersgate.com
games: This game version will have or a normal setup download using the Gamersgate download client, or in other cases will
contain Steam/Origin/Uplay serials which can be used to activate the game in Steam/Origin/Uplay. This is our second choice
advise;

G2A games: Are mainly Steam serials which can be used to activate games in Steam;

CD games: Are the games which are supplied on CD and are not digitally available;

Gametop games: Are the free games from Gametop.com. Those games will be automatically downloaded and installed for you;

Other: Are other sources then mentioned above, in most cases free game downloads from other sites.

Porting Kit Features

There are too many to mention but here just a few:

Automatic creation of Wrappers including installing Windows games;

Automatic download of files;

Implemented Screen Capture to create game videos;

Game ports always up-to-date in the Porting Kit database;

Add easily your own games (ports or not) to the Porting Kit local library;

Ranking System;

Rating System;

Integrated forum to put your questions;

Many more...

Porting Kit Tutorials

There are a number of Porting Kit tutorials, but the particular ones concerning the installation of your game are
added to the game pages on Portingkit.com website.